iPhone App Video Review: Bad Piggies

At some point or another, every iconic video game villain always gets some time of their own in the spotlight, whether it's Bowser joining your party in a Super Mario RPG, or Dr. Eggman fighting alongside Sonic. Sometimes you just get to play as the villains being villains though, which is the case in Bad Piggies. Now we get to enjoy those bumbling egg stealing antics first hand in this new vehicle based puzzler from the Angry Birds universe. It's great to see Rovio expand this universe some more.

After a silly accident, you're trying to reach scraps and pieces of a shredded map which will lead you and your piggy king to those precious eggs. This game is all about building vehicles, kind of like an even more casual version of Banjo & Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts. In each level, you place a set amount of pieces on a pre-set grid to form your vehicle. Pieces include different wheel types, shaken up soda bottles, fans, balloons, sandbags, propellers, rockets and even TNT crates. Suddenly Rovio's acquisition of Casey's Contraptions earlier this year makes a lot more sense. The design of the game is pretty brilliant, and overall the physics seem much more consistent than Angry Birds. The wild combinations of vehicles are fun, and making you think outside of the box is pretty standard.

As you play, you'll also get to hunt down the many pig-themed crystal skulls for bonuses. Getting enough stars in a set of levels unlocks bonus challenge levels and new parts for the Sandbox. The Sandbox levels are very cool. Essentially, they're very wide open areas with dozens of collectible boxes within, and you're given a boat load of parts to build with. There are a lot of neat ideas here, and everything from the colorful art to the well structured design is just as polished as you would expect. Definitely recommended. Bad Piggies is available for one dollar at the time of this review, with an HD version available for three.